The Dean's List #23
- Dean'sList
- Sep 3, 2022
- 3 min read
Is it just me, or does this feel like the busiest semester on record? I think it’s not just me so, this week, I’m sending a few answers to the same question: What keeps you from burning out?
From The Dean’s List #6
You know, you sense when you're not being as productive as you can be. So there are times, even when there's something critical, that you have to turn off the email if it's 6:00 PM and you could have a nice meal with your family and go for a walk. I don't do that normally, but if I feel the burnout sitting right in front of me, I know it's time to turn everything off and walk away, and that it'll be there in a couple hours or it'll be there in the morning and it's OK. But honestly, that's something that I need to get better about doing sooner than when I actually feel the burnout setting in. I think I'm not gentle enough with myself on that one.
From The Dean’s List #8
Number one, I've created a good group of friend/colleagues within the dean group — people I can send snarky texts to or people that I can vent to, and I don't ever have to worry about how that looks. People I can go out and have a drink with, you know, that sort of stuff. And then, my spouse is my lifeline.
The other thing I'll do is allow myself during the day to just pop on to the New York Times and they have a Spelling Bee game I'll play just as a break, but it's not a totally mindless break. I'm still actually using my brain.
I don't check email after work is over. I don't have notifications on my phone. I try not to even open up my Outlook on my phone. That's a good one. All of my department chairs, all of my staff, they all have my cell phone number, so if they need me for something and it's Friday or Saturday, they'll text me. And then I just try to take vacation, although that doesn't always happen.
One of my department chairs asked me the other day about whether or not I had plans on leaving. He said, “You know, I've discovered that the dean job is fairly well known in the district as the hardest job, and so people don't tend to last in it very long.” I ended up saying, “I'm not ready to leave this job until I feel like I'm doing a better job.”
From The Dean’s List #14 VPI Edition
I feel burnt out sometimes, but I have checkpoints in my mind and in my life. I run four to five times a week. I prefer to run at the end of the workday, whenever that is, just to clear my head. So I run, then I can turn on family time. It doesn't always work that way. But it lets me release all the craziness in my head. Every Friday, I now have a personal trainer, so I do CrossFit for 30 minutes, and she makes me cry by the end. It's kind of painful, but I also look forward to it because it's just me against me. I do fantasy baseball and football and I've been doing it for 20 years and I just love it. It my thing.
I think the camping has been a huge thing in our lives. Every three weeks we go on a trip. That's an every-three-week checkpoint for me. It's my reward. Vacations are key. I plan my vacations a year in advance. I'll take spring break off, I'll take the first week in June off, so it lines up with the kids. I'll take two weeks in July off, and then a week off in January. I'm really consistent about it. These are huge markers for me, something to look forward to.
From The Dean’s List #18
One of the things that helped me when I first started the job was getting involved in a community organization that did good work, and that I found value in. So I got on a fundraising committee. It was doing good work that I believed in and, because of that, then I had a community that was outside of the work capacity, which then gave me something to work toward that wasn't just ARC, but I still felt like it was related. It's a community college, so I'm doing work in the community. And the other thing that helped me was I went from answering emails after hours to not doing that — even if I do look at them. Also not having an ego about the work. You're going to get something wrong.
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Something to think about:
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